Geospatial mapping is employed in displaying a digital representation, in various forms, of the globe, space, and beyond. Attributes of such displays, such as the earth's terrain, temperature, geographic referenced economic data, and other associated characteristics, are commonly mapped on a computer or a smartphone, for instance. In the last couple of decades, particularly with the advent of the Internet, software has found numerous applications, beyond that which was even contemplated in years prior. Accordingly, with the state of current technology, for example, earth can be viewed virtually, on various devices and from a vantage point of somewhere in the space. It can be viewed in detail at selected areas upon the user zooming in or out. These are among a host of other display manipulations for mapping the globe, space, and beyond.
Multiple approaches have led to characterization of digital geospatial representation of geographic areas, points of interest, and interesting findings commonly found in geospatial maps. One such approach involves cinematic storytelling. To build a cinematic story that characterizes geospatial information such as earth terrain, temperature, economic data, and global carbon dioxide on a 3D globe, a user must create motion pathways. One method of creating cinematic pathways currently used in industry, involves using a series of still images of a digital earth as seen from space, using custom software application features available in the client device interface. Each successive still image changes in a number of ways including, height from surface of the earth, the angle of view from the surface of the earth, as well as latitude and longitude. The series of still images, when viewed in rapid succession, give the impression of viewing a continuous movement along the earth, which changes in latitude, longitude, elevation, and angle. This technique is similar to that used in motion picture development. An alternative method to creating a seamless motion along a 3D globe involves camera interpolation. In camera interpolation, a user takes two or more still image frames of the digital earth that differ in one or more parameters of latitude, longitude, elevation, and angle. The user then uses custom software application features available in the client device interface, to specify a transition pathway (e.g. linear spline, cubic spline, quadratic spline, etc. . . . ) which articulates the pathway that the camera will take between the successive still image frames. The software digital camera then records the 3D earth as specified along that transition pathway. The resulting video is a near continuous capture of the 3D earth along the motion pathway specified between the two still image frames.
In addition to creating a motion pathway, a cinematic digital story, that characterizes digital geospatial representation of areas, points of interest, and interesting findings commonly found in geospatial maps, users add voice narration, other sound files, annotations (e.g. visual text that is read on the client device interface), and other embedded rich media clips (e.g. digital videos) can be created.
One of the drawbacks of the current 3D geospatial cinematic story creation methods is that they rely on the use of static still image frames to create motion pathways. In addition, once completed, the content is saved as a specific movie file format (e.g. .avi, mp4, .flv). As a result, cinematic stories once completed, remain static fixed content and which cannot be modified. Creating 3D geospatial cinematic content has remained time consuming, highly challenging, and does not maintain current information. This greatly limits the capability to characterize digital geospatial representation of areas, points of interest, and interesting findings that may and do change over time.